Someone scraped our car and drove off - advice?

[polkadotty2]

DH has just drove back from the gym and said while stationary at traffic lights, cars in the next lane were driving past and one scraped him. Nobody is injured but his rear car door has scratches along its entire length with some denting.

He doesn't have their number plate and they drove off. Neither of us have experienced something like this before. What on Earth happens next? (We are 30s, lived in London carless for a decade and recently moved to the country side and bought a car).

Report it to your insurance company

I think you just have to suck it up.

Get a grip…

Mend it

Someone did that to our car in an IKEA carpark and we didn't notice it until the next day as it was dark when we got back to it. We just sucked it up as our car is a pile of junk, though, and we're not expecting to do anything except get it sold as scrap when we can't drive it any more!

Sorry, it’s annoying but this needs filing under “shit happens”.

Report it to your insurance company as a hit and run. Job done. That's why you have insurance.

Was he hanging over into their lane or did they drive into his?

I think the only 2 choices you have are to just leave the scrape (I would do this) or get it repaired.

I had a slightly similar thing happen recently (got a thread about it) and have had a fairly reasonable quote from chips away based on photos, then they come to you.
In my case I decided not to tell insurance as it wasn’t worth it for me but you’ll have to decide if you

• leave it and don’t fix it
• pay to get it fixed yourself
• go through your insurance with associated impact on premiums and no claims bonus, also remember your excess.

I’d get a quote and take it from there

At one time you used to have to report an accident to the police, but I don’t think they’re interested these days.

Someone drove into my car, took the bumper off and dented in the side panel and damaged a tyre. Just had to report to insurance, repairs were almost £2k. We had to pay the excess but our premiums went up the next year which was rubbish. Best bit is it was outside our house just when my husband was finally allowed to go out after shielding for 12 weeks 🤦‍♀️ if you can afford to fix it not via insurance then I would do that.

Either go through the insurance for the repair, or just pay for it depending on which looks like the best value.

Cough up or live with it

This is why you should have a dashcam.

Thanks for replies that have been helpful. Its just so gutting when you've spent so much to buy your first new car and this happens.